Like Aquino, Mangudadatu is probing calamity fund ‘anomalies’

In the fashion of President Benigno Aquino III, Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu of Maguindanao has opened a similar battlefront by probing into alleged anomalies in the provincial government during the reign of his predecessors. The new governor, whose wife and sisters were among the 57 victims of the grisly November 23 massacre, assured the public that despite commuting thousands of kilometers to attend each hearing of the Ampatuan multiple murder trial, he has not lost sight of his duties as governor of the southern Philippine province where the massacre occurred. Mangudadatu said his administration has started investigating "anomalies" he inherited from his predecessors, including former Gov. Andal Ampatuan Sr., the patriarch of the powerful rival clan and one of the suspected masterminds in the massacre. One of the so-called irregularities the new governor is looking into is the "unexplained disbursement" of some P730 million from the province’s calamity fund and community development fund, with the latter comprising about 20 percent of the unaccounted money. "Nagtataka kami bakit ginamit ang calamity fund, bakit na-touch iyon eh wala namang calamity sa amin (We’re asking why the calamity fund was touched, when there was no calamity there)," Mangudadatu said referring to his province, which like other areas in Mindanao is rarely hit by cyclones. He said he has already asked the two former officer-in-charge (OIC) governors — who administered Maguindanao from the time Andal Sr. was suspended late last year until Mangudadatu took over — to explain the release of such funds. The two OIC governors are former provincial board member Nariman “Ina" Abdullah Ambolodto, who took office in December after Andal Sr.'s suspension, and businessman Gani Biruar, who took over from Ambolodto in February. Despite being poured with an Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) of at least 3.42 billion in 2009, Maguindanao remains the the third poorest province in the Philippines, according to a report by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. [See: Maguindanao gets poorer, as Ampatuans get richer] President Benigno Aquino III in his State of the Nation Address (SONA) last July 26 said around 70 percent of the national calamity fund for 2010 had already been depleted by the time he assumed office, 20 percent of which he said went to former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s home province of Pampanga.—Mark D. Merueñas/JV, GMANews.TV